Franconia is full of green hills. It’s also full of charming small mediaeval towns girdled with tall mediaeval defensive walls.
With the need for defence long gone, this house in Dettelheim has been built on the remnants of a redundant mediaeval watch tower.
*An allusion to the popular English Victorian hymn ‘There is a green hill far away/Without a city wall‘
We went to the hospital today, to buy some wine. Yes, that’s right …. let me explain.
In 1573, an exceptional young man, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn was elected Prince-Bishop of Würzburg. He was well-connected and well-educated. By 1582 he had founded the University of Würzburg, which flourished and became a model for other seats of learning.
He was a skilled administrator who reduced taxes, improved the economy, and the administration of justice (unless you were thought to be a witch or a Jew: he fought hard for the purity of the church as he saw it).
But he had a lasting monument, aside from the University, and that was the Julius Hospital. Here is the legend.
When his niece married, he sent her a present: a casket, and three valuable fruits – lemons – symbolising the bitter, hard lives so many had, in contrast with her life of ease. Disgusted, she sent it back. He returned it. Three times in all. Then he gave up.
Silly young woman. Had she opened the casket, she would have found the deeds to lands and vineyards guaranteeing solid riches in perpetuity.
Julius used these riches rejected by his niece to found a hospital. This hospital was open to all citizens, rich and poor. It includes a poor house, an orphanage, an old people’s home. His clever investments have allowed the hospital to continue into modern times, though now it is a state-run institution.
But it has a restaurant, and it has a shop where the wine produced in its vineyards may still be bought. And that is where we went today, and tried a few samples before buying a few bottles. ‘Zum Wohl!’
Today we went to the Tauber Valley. We were off for kaffee and kuchen with Stephan and Gina’s family, and we planned to be tourists on the way.
Here is Weikersheim. It’s a mediaeval town. It’s a musical town: every summer it welcomes an international cohort of young musicians keen to work and play together.
It’s a town with a fine castle and gardens. And as we arrived, the long promised deluge arrived, so we only briefly glimpsed its fine Renaissance exterior, its Baroque statues, and its whimsical little dwarfs that populate the garden.
Earlier, we’d visited Tauberrettersheim, a town boasting a bridge designed by the architect of Würzburg’s Residenz, Balthazar Neumann.
After hail and driving deluge, we visited a church high up on a hill, the Bergkirche at Laudenbach, a pilgrimage destination for those en route for Compostela in Spain.
Later still, there was cake in excellent company. Three kinds of cake. A good day.
I had no idea that Würzburg was a tourist destination till today. Now I know that it is, and it’s worth it. If you haven’t visited yet, put it on the list. It’s a lovely city.
But we had our own personal Tour Guide, our friend Gina: knowledgeable, informative and fun.
Today, I can’t show you the Residenz, the extraordinary project of two 18th century prince-bishops. Photos not allowed.
I’ll tell you instead the shameful story of how Würzurg was all but destroyed at the very end of World War II. By us. In March 1945, Würzburg was one of the cities identified as a target of the Baedeker Raids – designed to decimate culturally significant communities. Twenty minutes of bombing on 16 March destroyed 80% of the town’s buildings and killed 5000 citizens in an attack that can only be described as a vindictive act of vandalism.
That Würzburg in general and the Residenz in particular has rescued and restored its rich heritage owes much to an American soldier, John Skilton, who worked indefatigably with both Germans and not-very-enthusiastic Allies to protect what remained of the Residenz.
I shan’t give you a conducted tour now. That may come later. Here are a few pictures: of the Marienburg Fortress above the town
looking over towards the Market Square…
….. and from the gardens of the Residenz.
A night on a ship. A day on the road, speeding through through the Netherlands (very flat) and then Germany (increasingly hilly as we approached Franconia, our destination).
This is what German motorway service stations have to teach us. Plastic free is possible. Sandwiches are wrapped in paper. Food is served on ceramic plates with metal cutlery. Proper coffee cups. Drinks (from glass bottles) are served in glasses. Paper straws.
All the concessions we saw danced to the same tune. Apart from Burger King and Costa. There it was disposable everything as usual.
… this is an allusion to the mediaeval Yorkshire thieves’ prayer when facing justice. I can’t elaborate when blogging on a smartphone. Google it.
We’re just on board the Pride of Rotterdam, heading for …. Rotterdam, on our way to Germany.
So we spent the afternoon in Hull, a city with a proud history as a port, but these days suffering a bit from being on the road to nowhere much. Andrew Marvell, William Wilberforce and Philip Larkin were all sons of Hull, and the city makes much of them.
We plan to come and explore this city properly, when we’re not in transit. It deserves closer inspection. For now, I’ll share two views of England’s largest parish church, Holy Trinity, built in the 13th century. One is a conventional view. The other is the same church as seen in the windows of the office block opposite.
It’s been quite a treat to stare out of our kitchen window these last two days. We have three lilac trees, one purple, one mauve and one white, which put on a spectacular and perfumed performance for one week only in May. Two mornings ago, there was not a bud in sight. By the evening, tight little green buds had appeared. Yesterday they were bigger. Today they’ve revealed their colours. Tomorrow they’ll be out. Then we go on holiday ….. and miss the rest.
Here’s what these hot few days in early May have produced in the garden. A few early flowers: narcissi , primroses still survive – just.
Naked trees have suddenly unfurled tender young leaves. Blossom blossoms. Bluebells and dandelions and poinsettia have appeared. The first wisteria flowers shyly peek from behind their delicate leaves. Spring has sprung.
And here is some May time music: Thomas Morley’s ‘Now is the month of maying’, sung by the Beaumont Singers.
We’d never heard of Coniston Pie before. Best head over that way then, and find out all about it.
Coniston’s a tiny village in North Yorkshire, wedged into the glorious limestone scenery between Kettlewell and Grassington. We couldn’t go there without exploring a bit and working up an appetite for that pie.
We began with a bit of a scramble, a bit of a climb before hitting a steadily climbing path leading us upwards between dry stone walls and statuesque and wind-shaped trees. Sheep were our constant companions as we continued to plod ever upwards, 1000 feet in all.
We rested at the top. We had a snack (just a biscuit, no pie for us), before taking the winding turfy track downwards towards the valley bottom, then turning sharp left to join the Dales Way back to Coniston.
And that’s when we saw it. Coniston Pie. It’s not hearty fare to be tucked into after a hard day’s lambing apparently, but this: the view the shepherd sees as he does his daily round.
Still, it does look exactly like a pie, filled with good things and topped off with a thick pastry crust, doesn’t it?
This week’s WordPress challenge asks us to post something unlikely.
If you’re in Ripon, you could amble down Fisher Green Lane, with the allotments to one side and the River Ure to the other. It’s a nice enough little spot – just the place for a little stroll, or for walking the dog. It’s best not to keep your eyes on the ground though.
Because of the litter. Maybe it doesn’t look too bad at the moment. The nettles have done a sterling job of covering up old cigarette packets, discarded cups from McDonald’s (McDonald’s is a mile away for heaven’s sake), cans and bottles. But once you start to poke around, as the litter-picking squad from Plastic Free Ripon did on Sunday morning, this is what you’d find. Armed with high-viz gilets and grabs from the council, and protective gloves from Surfers against Sewage, we searched the verges and released litter from the nettles.
Twenty bags-worth of the stuff. On under 200 yards-worth of road. And that’s not counting the discarded excavator bucket from a small digger, the broken glass and a selection of planks.
We could be busy 24/7. But we’re volunteers and we can’t do that. It would be nice to think that people watching us working away might be encouraged to join us, or to think about whether they themselves are litter-louts. In fact we had fun together. And ate cake. And fruit donated by Brian-with-the-fruit-and-veg-stall. But it would still be better not to need to do it at all.
We were walking on Thursday, near West Witton, Swinithwaite and Redmire. Because it was April in Yorkshire, it was bitterly windy and cold with occasional hail: that was after we’d confidently started off in deceptively warm sunshine with a light breeze.
The final slog was along a long ridge, with a just-as-long line of dry stone wall keeping us on the straight and narrow every step of the way. Here it is.
Earlier though, while the sun was still managing to shine, we passed a different sort of line. Solid stepping stones crossed the river in a gentle curve, inviting two of our number to take the challenge and leap from boulder to boulder to the other side, then back again.
This week’s WordPress photo challenge is ‘Lines’.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
You must be logged in to post a comment.